


No Showing, No Telling

by Skiewrites



Series: A Well-Known Nobody [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Reaction, Students
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:42:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skiewrites/pseuds/Skiewrites
Summary: It all starts off with small, handwritten notes on ripped corners of paper, originating from the person who sent off the email, spreading like a plague throughout the entire student body, completely underneath the noses of the staff, leaving them confused over the changes in them.The Galaxy Garrison have seen people come and go like the changing of a season, each with their own reactions. From the sorrow over the death of a popular astronaut to the confusion left behind by a student with ‘disciplinary issues’: the Garrison had seen it all.Or, at least, that’s what they thought before Lance McClain disappeared.For while the pilot's death caused mourning of a national level, and the ‘disciplinary issue’ caused many rumours to spread wide and far, he caused a hole so wide that nobody could fix it, yet causing the entire student body to unite under a common cause.The Galaxy Garrison was hiding something, that much was clear. It was up to them to find out what.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> I do suggest that you read the works before this for it to make any sense.
> 
> Previously under the title 'Dont Tell, Part One'

The article was the first of many, many headline news about the ‘Missing Garrison Cadets’ incident, as it was being called now.

Of course, as soon as it came out, the staff of the institute came under heavy fire from not only the parents but government officials, politicians, and new reporters. They tried to crack down on the leak, looking for the person responsible for the information leaking out to the public, but the attempt seemed half-hearted and unsuccessful for some reason, as if they’re hesitant to try and catch the person responsible, before they quickly gave up and turned their attention to things they deemed more important than a leakage in the student body, like the backlash from the press, and trying to contain that instead in fear that the incident will forever ruin their reputation.

It didn’t work as well as they wanted, but, try as they might, the press couldn’t seem to get a hold of any of the missing cadets’ names, no matter how hard they tried.

The military were tight lipped as it was, so it wasn’t like they were going to be getting anything out of them. None of the students seemed to be inclined to email any of the other reporters either, and it wasn’t like they could ask the parents (who were being oddly quiet in this sort of situation), which left Jessica Thomson, the first reporter to publish an article about the ‘Missing Garrison Cadets’ incident, the only person outside the Galaxy Garrison to currently know the names of the missing students.

(Of course, she had a distant cousin in the Garrison at the moment, which is why she was the first to hear about it and even know who exactly was missing, not that she was going to be telling anybody that anyway.)

There was, however, a more specific reason as to why the press couldn’t get a hold on any of the names.

.

.

.

It all starts off with small, handwritten notes on ripped corners of paper, originating from the person who sent off the email, spreading like a plague throughout the entire student body, completely underneath the noses of the staff, leaving them confused over the changes in them.

Small scraps of paper that are passed from person to person, from class to class, from friend group to friend group, quickly being copied onto more paper and spread all round the institute, because if Lance McClain did anything for the Galaxy Garrison, it was that he brought them all together in his weird and wacky and unintentional way.

The words themselves have little meaning to those who don’t know the context: _‘Don’t tell’._ It could mean anything for someone outside of those who knew the inner workings of the student body of the Galaxy Garrison, and for those who think that have an inkling of what’s going on, they’ll assume that its their way of warning others to not go to the press and tell them the names of the missing, ordering them to silence.

But, for those who do, it means more than that.

Sure, it does tell them not to go running to the media, but it’s more than that. It’s warning the first year not to tell anyone except the students about all the times they saw Gunderson sneak onto the roof to listen to the stars and hear what the aliens have to say. It’s telling the group of girls who giggle at McCain’s pick-up lines to not say anything about the way that Garrett was able to sneak in and out of the building by memorising the shifts of the guards and changing the hardwiring of the cameras to make them not spot him. It’s repeating the very words that McClain would tell them when they went for him for information, whether it was to give or receive.

It’s more than a warning or an order to the students of the Galaxy Garrison.

It’s a promise.

A promise that the missing trio have always kept, a promise that they always gave with no hesitation to the rest of the student body

This time, it was the student’s turn to keep the same promise that was given to them many a time.

.

.

.

Lance McClain may be the Paladin of the Blue Lion and the very heart of Voltron, but he also the most well-known nobody that the Galaxy Garrison had ever had walked through their doors, managing to unite the entire student body with finger guns, and single wink and the promise of sealed lips.

Shame he wasn’t there to see it.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week later...

And, so, after the silence, came the whispers.

Of course, it was inevitable, they were teenagers with restricted access to the internet and too much free time on their hands, of course the whispers would have started. Sure, it started a lot later than it would have for any other incident, much to the shock of the teachers, who were just as tight lipped abut the whole thing as the students were. The press was yelling and raging over what had happened, even though they didn’t know what _exactly_ happened, because the teachers cared a lot about their jobs and the students pretended to know less about what was going on then they actually did.

And, so, after the silence, came the whispers.

The whispers were different, however, from what they used to be before. Before, back when McClain was still around and still running the rumour mill, he would be the whispers, the one to come to the tables and to talk about what was going on and to find out what was hidden. The students had long learned that it was a hobby of his to know what was going on, to find out what others didn’t and to hide it from the rest, unless there was something bigger to gain, something more important to hide.

It had taken some of the students’ a while to understand the last part, about how some things needed to be hidden more than others. To begin with, he wasn’t taken very seriously at all, something akin to a joke rather than something that later became the backbone to the student life in the Galaxy Garrison. But then, he protects one person by sacrificing another, and it all makes sense, it all falls into place, and everything clicks together to form a smooth and sleek system. Of course, there are people who tried to fight back, to prove themselves better, but McClain hadn’t even needed to lift up a finger before they were pushed right back down to the bottom of the dog pile, and were silenced.

But these whispers weren’t McClain’s whispers, after all, he wasn’t here to do the talking, the talking was done about him.

So, where McClain would have just sat himself at a table and started rambling strategically, the students got up and moved to the dark corners of the building, and started planning. So, where McClain would have smiled and encouraged, the students frowned and threatened. So, where McClain would have asked nicely to not tell anyone, and you wouldn’t tell anyone in fear of McClain doing something with what you had just told him, the students simply smirked and dared the others to pass it on, to spread the word, to tell everyone of what was going on.

And so, after the silence, came the whispers, to drown out the truth and to spread the lies, because, if McClain had taught them anything, it was that hiding the truth was hard, extremely so, unless there were so many truths that the truths became lies and the lies became truths.

The world had been silenced for a week with nothing but two words on small scrapped bits of paper, but then it got up the next morning, and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this??? An update??? No one is more surprised than I am, to tell the truth. 
> 
> Important notice!!! I may add things from the backstories that we have gotten from Keith, and maybe Lance in the future, but anything concerning Lance and his time in the Garrison is CLEARLY AU, okay? Some elements may appear, but don't be surprised if that doesn't seem to be the case.


	3. Chapter 3

After the silence, came the whispers, and that brings its own bucket load of problems.

See, the thing about whispers is that they’re only quiet in certain types of situations.

Because, something that most people don’t realise is that whispers are sometimes not the best ways to keep things quiet, and there’s better ways to keep information out of preying ears. There’s no point whispering in a silent room where everyone can here you, or have everyone whispering at once, as that still shows those not in the know that they’re not in the know. They only work when they’re the quietest thing in the room, even everyone else is oblivious to what is happening in the background.

So, after the silence, and along with the whispers, came the talking.

But not just the talking. The yelling and the screaming and the shouting and the chatting and every other form of verbal communication that was expected out of teenagers these days.

But, Adam wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t daft.

He taught these teenagers; he knew these teenagers. He knew what McClain was like before he disappeared, he knew how the system worked. He knew what was going on from the moment that they fell silent, the moment that the quietness gave away to whispers to loud, meaningless gossip about pointless things that he knew that they couldn’t care less about, not with what was going on in the corners and the shadows. Who cared that the most popular couple broke up when there were three students missing, one of them unknowingly popular.

Adam wasn’t stupid, nor was he daft. He was once a teenager, and it was not as long ago like he sometimes pretended. Because, despite the fact that the years of growing puppy love turning into something more seemed like a whole lifetime ago, it has not been that long. Because, despite the fact that he pretended to be like the other adults, pretended to be a ‘grown up’ and ‘mature’, it was not long ago that he fell in love with Shiro, and it was a shorter time between watching Shiro leave him behind and now.

Though, Lance McClain was probably his most intriguing student he ever had, and he had taught Keith.

Lance McClain was in no way a popular student, but he was the most well-known out off all of them, not that anyone really knew him at all. He was recognised on sight, but barely anyone knew that his was Veronica McClain’s younger brother, despite sharing looks and surnames. They knew who he hung out with, who his flight crew was, who he roomed with, but it was last name basis; referred to as that ‘Weird Gunderson kid’ and ‘Garrett… who was that again?’.

It was intriguing, to say the least.

Not as intriguing as the fact that Shiro was alive (He was alive oh god he was actually alive he was going to kill him next time he saw him), and he had crash last night, and he had been kidnapped last night by Keith all of people.

Of course, he didn’t know any of this. He didn’t know that the missing trio had helped with the escape, and he didn’t know that Keith had flown them all off the side of a cliff, and it surprised the other officers that they weren’t pancakes at the bottom of the cliff. There is no way in the world, in the entire universe, that he knew this.

No way at all.

So, when the silence turned into whispers and the whispers turned into talking, Adam made sure to listen to everything that was said.

He learned about Kaitlynn having a member of her family in the press (and it explained why only one reporter knew what she did about what was going on), and he learned about the missing corners of textbooks from students ripping them out, and he learned about how there was just something ‘off’ about the whole thing, from the students and the teachers. He learned about Keith’s social media account where he uploaded desert photos going suddenly quiet, and he learned of whispers of a UFO, blue and feline looking, suspicious to be alien due to the animal, but too advance for someone to make.

It brought thrill to his blood to do this, listen to things being said aloud but not for him, and he finally understood McClain’s desire to stick his nose where it didn’t belong, because he now knew things that he would have never dreamed of asking for.

So, when the silence turned into whispers and the whispers turned into talking, Adam made sure to listen to everything that was said, and he took a note, and if taking a note meant taking a copy of every file he could get his hands on about the situation, then so be it.

Because, after all, knowledge was power, and power is what was needed in the time that were going to come.

Shiro was out there, doing something that he shouldn’t be doing, and Adam had done worse things in the name of love.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, here's an update on this I guess? See you in a year, maybe???

**Author's Note:**

> Me: *Looks at college work building up and at the other projects I need to complete*  
> Me: Let's write a new story!!!  
> Me at me: binch what ya thinkin'?
> 
> Here's my [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/skiewrites), for those of you who want to see more or just want to rant.


End file.
